The ongoing fight against the alt-right

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Bremen (?) » Sun Apr 08, 2018 7:17 pm

West Filly wrote:
Sun Apr 08, 2018 7:15 pm
As far as I've seen this book is about an exclusive, elitist and transphobic set of characters. You're right that jerkholes don't represent all geeks, but you're wrong about this story doing so.
That's an interesting choice of words. Does "as far as I've seen" mean you've neither read the book or seen the movie?

The book is not about exclusive, elitist, or transphobic characters. I haven't seen the movie, but I've heard enough good things that I'd be pretty shocked if it was.

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by West Filly (?) » Sun Apr 08, 2018 7:21 pm

Are you going to judge my value in this argument on my ability to recall ready player one trivia?

Can only a true fan offer criticism?
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Bremen (?) » Sun Apr 08, 2018 7:27 pm

West Filly wrote:
Sun Apr 08, 2018 7:21 pm
Are you going to judge my value in this argument on my ability to recall ready player one trivia?

Can only a true fan offer criticism?
I'm going to judge the validity of your argument based on knowledge of the actual work, yes. You don't have to be a fan to offer criticism (The criticism of someone who watches something and hates it is just as true as the criticism of someone that watches and loves it), but you should have first hand experience of the thing you're actually criticizing.

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by West Filly (?) » Sun Apr 08, 2018 7:31 pm

I don't need firsthand experience, just reliable sources informing me that

"Are you a woman? And by that I mean are you a human female who has never had a sex-change operation?"

appears in these works with no justifying context to have a reasonable crack at saying there's transphobic characters in the book this came from. If you want to strengthen the validity by going to a reader's view, then direct yourself to the readers who have informed me of this.
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Bremen (?) » Sun Apr 08, 2018 7:40 pm

West Filly wrote:
Sun Apr 08, 2018 7:31 pm
I don't need firsthand experience, just reliable sources informing me that

"Are you a woman? And by that I mean are you a human female who has never had a sex-change operation?"

appears in these works with no justifying context to have a reasonable crack at saying there's transphobic characters in the book this came from. If you want to strengthen the validity by going to a reader's view, then direct yourself to the readers who have informed me of this.
Sure. That scene is the MC expressing romantic interest in another character, who is skeptical and points out that they've never met. He tries to claim it doesn't matter, and she questions if he really feels that way. At which point he responds that yeah, as long as she's a woman, and then clarifies that he means a woman that has not had a sex change operation, he doesn't care about how attractive she is.

The character is stating that he's not romantically interested in a transgender woman (or man, since it works either way) - which is its own discussion, for sure - but he's not, as it's commonly misrepresented, saying that transgender women aren't women. The context - a long discussion about whether it's possible to crush on someone when you don't know what they look like - is important there.

I realize that's a sentence that you can read what you want into it, so let me summarize how I read it:

"Are you a woman? I mean, a cisgender woman? Then I don't care what you look like."

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by West Filly (?) » Sun Apr 08, 2018 7:52 pm

I get that this is someone asking whether person who appears as a woman in the virtual world is a woman in the real world. That's it's an exploration of the idea of building a romance without real world contact. I get that this isn't about how attractive she is, I didn't even think that attractiveness was a way it could be interpreted. I'm definitely not weighing in on the ethics of selecting against partners on the basis of protected characteristics, because that's a whole can of worms I'm not spilling at all.

In this context I'll give a limited benefit of the doubt. If this is what the writer and/or character was trying to say, they worded it poorly and this line needs to be highlighted as a lesson for editors in the future because having a character say that this way can offer validation for some hideous personal views.
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Jill (?) » Sun Apr 08, 2018 7:54 pm

it's clumsy writing at best because it reads to most of us as "are you a real woman?" and considering this is supposed to be the author's self-insert who's not interested in trans women for no stated reason, there is quite a bit of ground to ascribe transphobia to him

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Perrydotto (?) » Sun Apr 08, 2018 8:08 pm

I will always be sceptical of any media that highlight the raw memorization and recounting of pop culture trivia as a key ability to win a serious prize or honor. I get that it's supposed to be a silly, self-indulgent fantasy for geeks but I cannot overstate how alienating it feels to someone like me who is quite nerdy but not male. The BS claim of being a "fake fan" is leveled enough against women in very real situations and done with arbitrary standards such as "do you know X piece of trivia" or "have you consumed every part of Y in the franchise" that unironic praise for that kind of nerd cred makes me leery. It's just not a fantasy I can relate to at all, especially because it heavily reminds me of the very real gatekeeping done to anyone who doesn't fit into the narrow niche of white male nerd.

I can appreciate that you can relate to the fantasy from the book, because it's about a guy like you, but I really can't say enough how the combination of what I feel like is badly/careless written prose and very base level use of "nerd stuff dudes like" feels extremely uninviting for someone like me, and I reckon a whole host of other people. I understand it's not fun to hear that what you consider a fun read feels really alienating and at times offensive to others, but Ready Player One is so intensely indulgent for a very, very specific crowd that I think it's not surprising that for the majority of people outside of that crowd, it just doesn't click, at all. And when people say it reminds them of toxic nerd culture, there are legitimate reasons for that beyond clickbaiting or whatever. It's not about saying that Ready Player One singlehandedly caused Gamergate or something, but about saying that Ready Player One's seemingly very ignorant and unironic use of a lot of white cis male nerd indulging stuff has strong overlap with a bunch of toxic nerdy shit.
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Bremen (?) » Sun Apr 08, 2018 8:09 pm

On that, I can agree - it could be worded much better, and my take on it was that the author was probably just all around pretty ignorant of transgender issues in general, which is an unfortunately common phenomenon even now and more so back when it was written. There was a similar incident later where I felt the subject could have been brought up well later but it didn't; a sort of trans erasure, I guess, though I got the distinct impression it was completely due to the author just not really having a feel for the issues involved.

For what it's worth, Wade's best friend turns out to be a black lesbian who presents as a straight white male online - but they explain it's to avoid the prejudice they'd face for being a black woman gamer, and it was unclear to me if they personally identify as male.

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by West Filly (?) » Sun Apr 08, 2018 8:13 pm

I'm not perfect on this issue either. I like the manga Fruits Basket even though a character who is strongly trans is completely shat on in the very end of the story. Much like what you're saying now, I put it down to it being written in a time and a place where the author didn't even know that this was the thing that it is.
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Dexanth (?) » Wed Apr 11, 2018 9:17 pm

West Filly wrote:
Sun Apr 08, 2018 7:15 pm
As far as I've seen this book is about an exclusive, elitist and transphobic set of characters. You're right that jerkholes don't represent all geeks, but you're wrong about this story doing so.

Not all geeks are butts but the story validates butts directly.
It ain't for everyone but it's definitely something I'd call a good example of a work that has weaknesses, but gets massively attacked for being exclusionary in problematic ways and then condemned for that, when I would contend the reality was more 'Nobody was thinking about that as an issue when it was written'.

The book is far from perfect, but like it's a good example of 'context matters'. The whole 'transphobia' bit is really more a conversation about how people's online personas may differ completely from their RL selves, and so you shouldn't fall for an avatar because you have no idea who the real person is, and if you are attracted to X & avatar is X, and you fall for that, but aren't into Y and RL is Y, well - we can't choose sexuality.

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Pocket (?) » Fri Apr 13, 2018 10:17 pm

Just popping in to ask, does anyone still have the link to that article in... I think the Atlantic, where they interviewed Eron Gjoni in the wake of Gamergate? It seems to have finally expired from my browser history, and Google is being surprisingly unhelpful (perhaps he's been taking advantage of their policy of deleting stuff about people who ask them to).
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by SlateSlabrock (?) » Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:37 am


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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Tue Apr 17, 2018 10:12 pm

Sandy Hooks parents sue Alex Jones for defamation.

It goes without saying that Jones is a fucking lunatic. I hope they throw a book at him.

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Pocket (?) » Wed Apr 18, 2018 2:03 am

I wonder what the difference is between "defamation" and "slander". Because Jones is definitely guilty of the latter. I'm guessing it's a matter of whether you sue for money or press criminal charges. I wish it were possible to put someone behind bars and demand money from them for the same crime, given how often victims need that money.
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by SlateSlabrock (?) » Wed Apr 18, 2018 5:36 am

Seems like slander and libel are forms of defamation.
Defamation of character must be a false statement of fact, instead of being an offensive or insulting remark made with no basis in fact or perceived fact. Any statement that is made in any form of media that cannot be proven to be fact or fiction cannot be claimed against in a court of law, according to the Media Law Research Center.

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by PhoolCat (?) » Wed Apr 18, 2018 6:17 am

So, saying SlateSlabrock eats kittens is okay, but saying it is a fact that SlateSlabrock eats kittens is not okay?
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Erythema (?) » Wed Apr 18, 2018 9:50 am

What's the documentation on the alt right been so far? If one intends on fighting them, it's worth knowing what hurts them. I can think of a no better approach then to infiltrate their den and figure out the anatomy of their group. Once that has been figured out, one can see weak points that can be exploited to great effect with little energy.

If it cannot be posted out in the open, sending me a PM shall suffice.

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by West Filly (?) » Wed Apr 18, 2018 10:31 am

They document their own activities openly on 4chan and sometimes on subreddits that'll eventually get banned. What hurts them is crippling depression and loneliness. Their anatomy is a horrifying mass of waving dicks all disconnected and acting independently to dominate one another and/or fuck everyone in the surroundings competetively. The weak point is that many of these dicks will eventually tire of the game and fall out of the mass. To exploit this, we support former dicks in becoming not dicks should they choose, educating potential dicks in the dangers of the mass, hopefully ebbing away at the total number of dicks in the mass.
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Erythema (?) » Wed Apr 18, 2018 11:47 am

And here I thought they might have been something to reckon with. If anything, they're sounding like a joke that's gone out of control.

Admittedly, I haven't come into any contact with this Alt Right so I don't know what to expect. Perhaps, then, the name "All Trite" might prove a more fitting name.

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Pocket (?) » Wed Apr 18, 2018 12:28 pm

Never underestimate the power of a bunch of bored sadists who have banded together and operate anonymously. Especially when law enforcement has zero interest in investigating them in any way.
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by West Filly (?) » Wed Apr 18, 2018 12:43 pm

I'll make a more serious post:

Its hard to come to a reasoned understanding of the alt right because there's a large degree of irony, joking and meme ing going on. If you look at the Daily Stormer's introductory articicle "what is the alt right? - a normie's guide" you'll find yourself wading through some bizarre statements about jews and how they're orchestrating white extermination. It'll leave the reader wondering if this is earnest, in which case it's insanity, or whether it's using trolling as a political tactic: saying the worst shit knowing it'll set everyone off, allowing the in group to lol @ u libtards or whatever they might say. In other words what appears to be a completely batshit ideology is actually an invite to those who want to be part of the mass troll. If you take their words seriously, you'll be outraged and want nothing to do with it. If you "get" the awful "joke" (ugh) and join in, you're welcomed. Posting things like "Whites are being exterminated... ...jews are behind it" is, at best, a very subtle form of gatekeeping and recruitment. Trolls in, serious people out.

At worst, it's a very effective way of keeping people on the same page. It's making sure that the mass I spoke of is all dicks. The weakness of the left, and even groups within the left such as feminism, is that we're all working so hard to try and find reasonable answers that we can't actually agree on which reasonable answers are right or how to go about it. Getting a majority to agree that oppression is wrong is hard enough itself, getting people to agree on a specific measure that can be implemented to combat that is harder still. The strength of the alt right is that they don't need serious plans that appeal to the majority. So long as there's enough people in it for the lulz, they can get things done. Things like DDoS attacks or large scale harassment campaigns against individuals on the internet. They can find people IRL and shit in their letterboxes if they want to. The power of the alt right is that they've recruited a mass of people who want to be a part of this big troll.

Worse yet, there will always be people who don't get that the bizarre statements are a troll and who will genuinely believe in them. When you have a big party of people who are in it for a laugh, they're not going to say "dude this is a troll" to someone like that. They're going to see what they can get the crazy man to do. In the same way they'd enjoy seeing an unknowledgeable child deleting system 32, they'd like to see a crazy legitimately rail about jews. Or gay frogs.
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Strangething (?) » Wed Apr 18, 2018 1:20 pm



This video changed how I think about the American far-right. Shaun (formerly Shaun and Jen) is worth following.
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Perrydotto (?) » Wed Apr 18, 2018 1:56 pm

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Erythema (?) » Wed Apr 18, 2018 2:43 pm

I'll have to watch that hour-long video some other time.

So apparently, if one were to engage with them, they might turn around and target someone. That part I need to question because I'm pretty sure they would have gone and done that regardless.

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Strangething (?) » Wed Jun 13, 2018 12:52 pm

Image

I remember seeing this defense pop up during Gamergate. :facehoof:
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Wed Jun 13, 2018 12:57 pm

The "leftists drove me to become a Nazi" is such a dumb argument. I sadly heard it before Gamergate, although it definitely took off when alt-right did.

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Pocket (?) » Thu Jun 28, 2018 6:29 pm

So two days ago Milo Yiannopoulos openly called for "vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight."

And today, someone apparently took that advise to heart.

MOD EDIT: Do not encourage violence against individuals.
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Pocket (?) » Fri Jun 29, 2018 9:54 pm

Actually, after reading what a vain, sniveling coward he is, I think I've changed my mind. I don't want him killed. I just want him to be permanently disfigured. He'd probably kill himself out of shame after that.
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Big Boss (?) » Fri Jun 29, 2018 10:43 pm

Please to be not advocating violence against individuals on this forum. Rail against them all you want, call them disgusting or whatever, but do not call for explicit violence. I don't need visits.

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Strangething (?) » Sat Jun 30, 2018 1:48 pm

Milo is far from the only one calling out journalists as the enemy.



Sorry for making you all read a Trump tweet. :fluttersmith:
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Mr. Big (?) » Wed Jul 11, 2018 8:57 pm

The founder of Papa John's is a bigger dickhead than previously thought :starity:

EDIT: He resigned as the chairman of the company. He already resigned as CEO earlier this year over another controversy, so at this point he's officially no longer associated with Papa John's.

And to think, this happened during a meeting where he was trying to improve his PR. :-I

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Pocket (?) » Thu Sep 06, 2018 3:16 am

Here's an interesting development. Anyone remember the Escapist? That pseudo-magazine-turned-general-gaming-site that's known mainly for being the site that has Yahtzee's show? Back in 2014, its founder and CEO Alexander Macris—after years of tolerating tons of openly leftist op-ed content—started subtly shifting towards an alt-right apologist stance, first publishing interviews with pro-Gamergate people in the industry, and then an interview with Markus Persson almost immediately after he started getting in hot water over anti-feminist tweets, and finally by "letting go" the site's two biggest Gamergate opponents, Jim "Jim Fucking Sterling, Son" Sterling and Bob "Moviebob" Chipman. Who also happened to be two of the three biggest content creators. Needless to say, this utterly tanked the site, and most bafflingly of all, he never actually bothered to find fellow 'Gators to fill their spots, aside from the new editor-in-chief Joshua Vanderwall, who used his position to post stuff like... this.

AAAAAAAAAAAAANYWAY, Macris kept a low enough profile to make it unclear who was actually the ringleader of the whole thing, letting the new editor and the negligent parent company take all the heat, until he left to cozy up to Milo. His departure left the site with no one really behind the wheel, since the parent company was just that negligent. Aside from never firing Macris for running one of their assets into the ground, they let the site's ad partnerships expire, and multiple people have reported attempting to contact them with offers to buy out the site and never hearing back.

Well, it seems that someone finally managed to get through, because the site has been bought out by some startup, and they've hired former editor-in-chief Russ Pitts back into his old position. And Chipman is already back and making video content. Sterling's not budging, but mainly because his BRAND is worth more than that whole site at this point. Dude knows how to sell himself. And with all this comes some new revelations about what actually went on behind the scenes; the biggest one is that (according to Bob's latest vlog) Macris was "feeding information" about some of his employees to the Gaters, which makes it sound like he was straight-up doxxing them. Coming from someone who went on to work with Milo, who'd even be surprised? Anyway, I'll keep you posted if more details emerge.
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by West Filly (?) » Thu Sep 06, 2018 4:02 am

As the left becomes quite rightly riled and tribalistic, once your brand has fallen from grace its only way of making money is to hail satan.

After all, if the Escapist tried to apologise or tried to hire minority people to make amends, most of us would be sat here thinking "too little, too late" while the right loses interest altogether. They might as well turn to the dark side and see how it works for them financially. Not saying the site isn't shitty or didn't bring this on themselves. I am saying that the way politics has polarised society means that there's now two lines of least resistance in terms of finding an audience, and they've made one of them rather difficult for themselves. They may as well try to make the other way work for themselves and never look back.
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Madeline (?) » Thu Sep 06, 2018 4:14 pm

West Filly wrote:
Thu Sep 06, 2018 4:02 am
As the left becomes quite rightly riled and tribalistic, once your brand has fallen from grace its only way of making money is to hail satan.

After all, if the Escapist tried to apologise or tried to hire minority people to make amends, most of us would be sat here thinking "too little, too late" while the right loses interest altogether. They might as well turn to the dark side and see how it works for them financially. Not saying the site isn't shitty or didn't bring this on themselves. I am saying that the way politics has polarised society means that there's now two lines of least resistance in terms of finding an audience, and they've made one of them rather difficult for themselves. They may as well try to make the other way work for themselves and never look back.
This reading doesn’t make any sense, though. The Escapist already went hard right 4 years ago, and it tanked the site as a business. They couldn’t get replacement ad networks, or didn’t try to do so, and it bled money to the point where the old owners were ready to sell it. You’re saying that they should continue to embrace a business and editorial strategy that has already failed.

Whether or not the Escapist returns to a more leftist perspective, it’s very difficult to make a successful business out of any website in 2018. Ad clicks have dried up because of the arms race between intrusive online advertising and adblockers. Trying to generate goodwill by bringing back people like Russ Pitts and Bob Chipman is about the only play the new owners have to go with right now. After that, it’s down to whether or not they can generate enough content and social media shares to create impressions to keep the site running and earn a profit (since I doubt that anyone would buy a recognizable brand just to run it at a deficit in this capitalist hellscape).

And I know leftists can be tribalistic, but that’s because people in general are tribalistic. People also have very short memories. Using myself as an example, I bailed on the Escapist when they went sympathetic to GG, but then I forgot it even existed. Now that I know the GG crew are gone, and Chipman is on the site, I’m willing to at least read an article or two to see if they’re any good. I’d think that would be the more common reaction, because at the very least, having Chipman on board is itself a big signal that the site is no longer operating under its old editorial direction. And that’s assuming a lot of people even remember what the site is. It’s been a long time since Yahtzee was a big deal.

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Erythema (?) » Mon Sep 10, 2018 8:30 am

Are the alt right still relevant at this stage? It's been a while since I've heard anything at all from them.

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Fizzbuzz (?) » Mon Sep 10, 2018 9:27 am

The alt-right pretty much is the right at this point, at least in America. Republicans are basically the party of Trump now, considering the fervor he's whipped their base up into.
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Erythema (?) » Mon Sep 10, 2018 10:02 am

Guess it's just the right at this point.

Are any of you here actually politically active and not just spectating? Friends from the US have told me quite a bit about how their stress levels have gone down ever since they unplugged. One could make the case that life is too short to only be anxious about what you cannot control.

As for Trump, is this really about Trump and his flying monkeys or is this about some agenda? If I know the goal, I could give more useful input on what strategies might be used to counter-attack.

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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Factory Factory (?) » Mon Sep 10, 2018 1:35 pm

Erythema wrote:
Mon Sep 10, 2018 10:02 am
Guess it's just the right at this point.

Are any of you here actually politically active and not just spectating? Friends from the US have told me quite a bit about how their stress levels have gone down ever since they unplugged. One could make the case that life is too short to only be anxious about what you cannot control.

As for Trump, is this really about Trump and his flying monkeys or is this about some agenda? If I know the goal, I could give more useful input on what strategies might be used to counter-attack.
Well let me take a break from canvassing and GOTV efforts to thank you for you offer of help in solving a centuries-long crisis of epidemic white supremacy which has involved multiple genocides, a brutal civil war, rampant anti-intellectualism, and outright naked cruelty, and which is currently manifesting in a kleptocratic fascist proto-dictatorship limited mainly by the sheer stupidity of its enactors and the short-term electoral concerns of its enablers. I'm sure you have sound advice for any particular goal I state given this situation!
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Re: The ongoing fight against the alt-right

Post by Erythema (?) » Mon Sep 10, 2018 2:20 pm

Factory Factory wrote:
Mon Sep 10, 2018 1:35 pm
Well let me take a break from canvassing and GOTV efforts to thank you for you offer of help in solving a centuries-long crisis of epidemic white supremacy which has involved multiple genocides, a brutal civil war, rampant anti-intellectualism, and outright naked cruelty, and which is currently manifesting in a kleptocratic fascist proto-dictatorship limited mainly by the sheer stupidity of its enactors and the short-term electoral concerns of its enablers. I'm sure you have sound advice for any particular goal I state given this situation!
I can certainly try.

Sounds like you're looking to neutralize the ideology of white supremacy and its adherents. If it's going to be about targeting a group, the course of action I can think of is to destroy their morale. To do that, I need to carefully listen for the dark voices of its adherents. We all have that dark voice in our heads that's quite proficient at tearing us down from the inside-out. If I can figure out that of theirs, I can cause them a lot of pain just by typing out words -- and if they're in pain, it tells me I'm doing something right.

This is something I've done on right-wingers in Youtube comments section before. It takes an immense amount of concentration to find their dark voice within the subtext of their messages. As more individuals get targeted, you become more experienced. The more experienced you get, the more insight you get into what gets under their skin. This is extremely valuable information as it gives us the ammo to fire back at them.

There is a caveat to this. To do maximum damage, our side might have to make some concessions or sacrifices. I'm not saying that we sacrifice everything to push back white supremacists but that we don't put it off the table.

If experience tells me anything, it's the the surest way to hurt ideological opponents is to find out what their idols and measuring sticks are and pummel them with it. I've had more success wrenching their kind from the inside-out than from the outside-in.

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